


And Wilt Thou Leave Me Thus?

by purrfectj



Series: Patience, Though I Have Not [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Eirian Phasma is the best, Emperor Kylo Ren, General Leia - Freeform, Hurt/Comfort, Juznik Family Dynamics, Multi, Poe Dameron loves everyone, Resistance Major Lillia, Resistance Prisoner Hux, Resistance Spy Kittani, Rey Solo, Skywalker Solo Family Dynamics, Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2018-02-27
Packaged: 2018-05-25 00:27:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6172774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purrfectj/pseuds/purrfectj
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A sequel to my story <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/5715523">I Find No Peace</a> REWORKED, restarted at chapter three, one and two remain unchanged. Also, changed Hux's name to canon.</p><p>Kittani Juznik has been rescued from the First Order by Jedi Rey Solo after months of acting as a Resistance spy within the organization. Her mission was to capture a high-level target alive. She succeeded. General Armitage Hux sits in a cell on the Resistance's D'Qar base, interrogated daily by Kittani's identical twin, Major Lillia Juznik, who is determined to turn him no matter the cost. Rey, who's never had a family, suddenly has Luke and Leia and Finn and maybe Poe and her brother. Her brother who visits her in the places between, her brother who killed their father in front of her, her brother who has fallen in love with Kittani. Her brother who has declared himself Kylo Ren, Emperor.</p><p> </p><p>  <em>Kittani and her Emperor dreamed of her first, precious surrender.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **And Wilt Thou Leave Me Thus?**  
>  By Sir Thomas Wyatt
> 
> And wilt thou leave me thus?  
> Say nay, say nay, for shame,  
> To save thee from the blame  
> Of all my grief and grame;  
> And wilt thou leave me thus?  
> Say nay, say nay!
> 
> And wilt thou leave me thus,  
> That hath loved thee so long  
> In wealth and woe among?  
> And is thy heart so strong  
> As for to leave me thus?  
> Say nay, say nay!
> 
> And wilt thou leave me thus,  
> That hath given thee my heart  
> Never for to depart,  
> Nother for pain nor smart;  
> And wilt thou leave me thus?  
> Say nay, say nay!
> 
> And wilt thou leave me thus  
> And have no more pity  
> Of him that loveth thee?  
> Hélas, thy cruelty!  
> And wilt thou leave me thus?  
> Say nay, say nay!

Sunrise was painting the sky in blues and pinks and reds and yellows. The air smelled of fresh, growing things, of water and light and air, and Kittani slid the door closed behind her as she stepped out onto the deck overlooking the lake, clear and blue, a mug of caf steaming in her hand. The man at the railing, tall, broad-shouldered, long-limbed and muscular, turned to smile at her, shoulder-length black curls tousled, sleeping pants hanging low on his hips, his feet and chest bare, the picture of gorgeous maleness, but it was the small bundle he cradled in his arms, the little face with its own mop of unruly black hair and scrunched up, pouting mouth that had Kittani cooing, soft and low. The baby turned immediately toward her voice, a tiny fist flailing out and the mouth working faster and Kittani laughed as the baby let out a loud squall of distress. 

“He’s starving, daddy. Why didn’t you wake up mommy?” Her voice was teasing as they traded caf for baby, and the man stuck his tongue out at her as she lowered the side of her gown and offered the baby her breast. He latched on immediately, his little fist kneading her swollen flesh, and Kittani turned to lean against the solid wall of the man's chest, one of his arms around her shoulder, his fingers brushing over his son’s head as he brought the mug up to take a sip. 

“Daddy was trying to be nice and let mommy sleep in. Tidbit here wasn’t having it, though.” 

Kittani made a wordless little hum of appreciation and turned to press a kiss to the man’s collarbone. “Takes after his father. Impatient and greedy.” 

He laughed and nuzzled the top of her head until she tilted back so he could kiss her, gentle and slow and soft. “Yes.” 

They both watched the baby suckle, his ocean blue eyes with their ridiculously long and curling lashes beginning to droop, until Kittani had to switch him to her other breast. Her voice was soft, her own eyes sad when she looked up. “This is your fantasy.” 

He traced the delicate shell of their son’s ear, the baby soft skin of his cheek and his temple, and then his long, pale fingers stroked lightly over the distended skin of her breast where his son was mouthing her nipple, drowsy and contented, half-asleep as he sucked. He did not look at her, the curve of his down-turned face strangely vulnerable. “Not just mine.” 

There wasn't a safe answer to that pronouncement so she said nothing, simply basked in the sunshine, in the warmth and light and safety of her little pretend family. 

Once the baby had taken his fill, he smiled a crooked grin and deftly took the now sleeping baby from her, lifting him to his shoulder to pat and rub his back. Kittani rearranged her gown and watched as the man who most recently had been reported as cutting a path with his Knights through a Republic shipping yard hummed a dreamy lullaby and bounced the tiny baby gently until he made a very loud burp and then nuzzled his nose against the petal-soft cheek, his almost black eyes kind, the scar on his face, the dozens marking his body, doing nothing to lessen his appeal as he brushed the knuckles of his free hand over her cheek. “You know where I was when that attack was happening.” 

She did know. 

And looking down at the baby, this beautiful little boy with his curls and her eyes, this beautiful little boy who couldn't exist because if he did, if he did... 

The man's hand, large and male and callused, spread open, cupping her cheek, and he leaned down until he could rest his forehead against hers, the baby soft and perfect between their bodies. “Come back to me, kitten.” 

Her belly contracted, hard and tight, and she blinked as her eyes prickled, the threat of tears. She whispered achingly, “Ben.” 

“Yes,” he whispered back, leaning back a bit, his fingertips sliding over until he could tilt her chin up, up so she could see his face, the plea and the fear there. “I can't...” He swallowed hard, his throat bobbing with the movement, and Kittani felt the first hot, wet drop trickle down her face, felt him capture it on his thumb. “I can't protect you there.” He used his cheek against hers as he'd done before, before when he was wearing the mask, before when he'd strung her up and marked her as his in that last shared Force dream. 

Before, she thought with the heavy drag of despair, before when it had been _only_ dreams between them and not the reality of him hard and hot between her thighs, the reality of him kissing her, touching her, holding her close after when they both slept deep and dreamless. 

“You don't mean just me,” she managed to choke out over a sob and his exhale was slow and patient as his hand slid down the front of her body, down, down until he could press those long, slender, elegant fingers against the softness of her belly. 

“Oh, god.” 

OoO 

A system away, the Emperor of the First Order dropped his gloved hand to his side, fisted it, and was fiercely, viciously glad he was wearing his mask. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Hux ate when they brought him food, slept when the lights in his cell were dimmed, used the ‘fresher when he was allowed, did as much physical training as the small space and limited resources would allow, and thought he might go quietly mad if he had to have one more ‘productive conversation’ with Major Juznik._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bear with me, folks. Work is crazy. Weekly updates hopefully with this one. <3

Finn and Leia and Lillia and Luke met the shuttle as it touched down, only Finn and BB-8 rushing forward as soon as the ramp descended, BB-8 whistling madly and Finn smiling so big his face had to hurt. It was Kittani who emerged first, her face pale and tired, her eyes pinched at the corners, and she smiled tightly as she stepped past Finn, past everyone to lay a hand on her twin's shoulder. “Lillia.” 

“Kittani,” Lillia returned neutrally. There had been talk, at the beginning, that the dreamy-eyed medic turned spy would chafe at being assigned to report directly to her sister, talk that had quickly disappeared when it became apparent that, of the two, it was Lillia who was the best suited for command, for the rhythms and reports and rituals of life on base. Kittani, drafted for the mission because she could actually pass as a medical doctor and because she was beautiful, was best suited for research and books and the occasional need to shoot a blaster with 97% accuracy. 

It was Kittani who'd captured Hux. 

It was Lillia who would turn him. 

If they'd wanted to rule the galaxy, Leia thought with a touch of whimsy, watching as Kittani murmured something quietly to Lillia that made the Major blink, they might have just been able to pull it off. Lucky for her, and the Resistance, their aims weren't quite that high. Lab space and order. She could do that. Until she couldn't. 

“Stop,” Luke said mildly, leaning his cheek on her hair and his arm on her shoulder. They'd both shrunk he thought with a tired old person sigh, watching Finn hug Rey and Rey hug Finn and Poe slouch up from somewhere to be tugged into the middle with a sheepish, hopeful look. 

“They took too long to come back,” she returned but without rancor, sliding her arm around her brother's waist. When Luke said nothing, she tilted her head up to find his eyes, pale blue and steady in his old man face, in _Obi-Wan's_ face, kriff, when had they gotten so _old,_ looking at Kittani, standing alone now as Lillia strode over to greet Rey. 

“Or just long enough,” he murmured and she poked him sharply with her elbow. 

“None of your Jedi nonsense, farm boy.” But she could feel it, the waver and dip and change in the Force, the change that somehow was centered not only on Rey but also on, or near, Kittani. Kittani who was Force sensitive but not enough to be trained, Kittani who had been sent on a fool's errand _because_ she was Force sensitive. 

He laughed, a rusty sound, and leaned down to lay a smacking kiss on her forehead. “Leia. Look at her.” At his sister's exasperated huff, he nudged her with the Force. “Look at her and _see_.” 

Grumbling under her breath, Leia let herself open, let her power unfurl inside of her, let it brush over Rey's conviction and anticipation, Finn's excitement and affection, Poe's eagerness and delight, Lillia's unease and concern, and found Kittani. Kittani who was leaking joy and despair and confusion and desperate yearning, Kittani who turned and met Leia's stunned caffa eyes with a rueful, pained, apologetic expression even as her hand dropped and spread over her lower belly in a familiar, protective gesture. 

The lower belly where she was sheltering, growing, loving, the grandson of Han Solo. 

“Goddammit,” Leia growled and she was off before Luke could stop her. With a philosophical shrug and a little tug for moral support toward Rey through their Master/Padawan bond, he started after his twin, smiling his most engaging, sweetest grin. 

Kittani did her best not to wince as General Organa, who she'd met only the once when she'd signed on for the stupid, dangerous mission to Starkiller, suddenly turned smartly on her heel and started toward her, the legendary Jedi Luke Skywalker dogging her heels with something of a silly grin peeking through his salt and pepper beard. She nearly sagged in relief when Rey swung in suddenly from the side, one arm around the General, one arm around the Jedi, steering them resolutely away, tossing a grim smile over her shoulder for Kittani and for Lillia, who'd come back to her twin as Finn and Poe trailed after the Skywalker-Organa-Solos like eager ducklings. 

The smile said Kittani had explaining to do. 

“I hate the Force,” Kittani muttered, her hand still spread over her belly, the General and the Jedi’s reactions telling her that Kylo ( _Ben, kitten, to you I’m always Ben_ ) had been right: she was pregnant with his baby. _Their_ baby. The _Emperor’s_ baby. 

Shit. 

“I’m so glad I don’t have that problem,” Lillia said with feeling. The twins were identical in looks save Lillia’s choice of short hair and the freckle-sized mole below the right corner of her eye, identical down almost to the molecular level save the one difference: Lillia was completely, utterly Force-null. No Force hoodoo for her, thank the gods, and she felt immediately guilty for the thought as she registered Kittani’s shiver, the ashen pallor of her face. She shuffled awkwardly and asked abruptly, with no grace, “Do you need your sister or your CO?” and then cursed herself even as Kittani’s mouth curled up and she tipped her head over to lean on Lillia’s shoulder. 

“Debrief me while I see the med droid and then hold my hair while I throw up?” 

Relieved beyond measure, swamped with sisterly concern, Lillia looped an arm over Kittani’s shoulder and headed into the base. “So, let’s talk about General Armitage Hux…” 

OoO 

Hux ate when they brought him food, slept when the lights in his cell were dimmed, used the ‘fresher when he was allowed, did as much physical training as the small space and limited resources would allow, and thought he might go quietly mad if he had to have one more ‘productive conversation’ with Major Juznik. 

He would not have risen as high and as fast as he had if he had not been able to read people. That his instincts had been clouded when it came to the other Juznik sister had been confirmed by his very capture, further the longer he spent away from her. Whatever space wizardry she (or Kylo, or Snoke, or one of the Knights) had been using started to wear thin, shredding until he could be by turns fascinated and appalled by his unprecedented pursuit of her. He who had been raised with discipline, duty, devotion. He whose glorious future was now spent eating, shitting, and talking on a schedule set by a woman who cared for him as much as she might a worm she found under her shoe. 

A woman whom he'd discovered over the days (weeks, months, the time was running together no matter how he tried to keep count) was utterly unsuited to the task she’d obviously set herself. The Major was a woman of action, not a woman of words, and though she was by the gods trying, he thought if she _continued_ to try, he might have to find a way across the table to wring her pretty neck. 

“She fidgets as if her pants are afire,” he muttered, shaking his head even as he lowered it toward the floor, halfway through his first set of push-ups for the day. 

And that, he promised, was the last thought he’d give to the Major until she came to ‘talk’ to him again. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The Emperor of the Known Galaxy winced and scrubbed a hand through his overlong curling dark hair. He looked older, his wide, expressive mouth pinched, his elbows propped on his knees, the already pale cast to his skin nearly grey and Rey would have had more sympathy if she wasn’t so_ kriffing _angry with him._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm baaaaccckkk. With this one, at least. Chapters 1 and 2 have remained unchanged. This chapter is slightly different at the beginning and helps us understand Lillia/Kittani a little better. I also delayed the entrance of BAMF Eirian Phasma because she gets more screen time later. I just want to say thank you to [Pango22](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Pango22) for their kind review that kicked me in the rear with this. I was unhappy with it and then Pango22 reminded me, hey, it's isn't about me, it's about the readers. So here we go. Thanks, guys, you being here with me means a lot. (Also, Armitage Hux? Er...)

Kittani did indeed throw up after seeing the med droid. “The power of suggestion,” Lillia huffed but she held her sister’s hair and let her sister lean and then she tucked her, gently, into bed. “Stay here. Rest. I’ll report to the General.” Kittani nodded and curled up, curled around herself as if protecting the little life inside of her, and Lillia made sure the door was shut firmly and no one was in the hallway before she sagged, pressing her hands to her face. 

Her sister was pregnant. Kylo Ren, Master of the Knights of Ren, self-styled Emperor of the known galaxy, was the baby's father. And while Kittani had admitted the child was a complete and utter surprise, she had passed her hand through the scan of it projected over her belly by the med-droid with wonder and joy and whispered, “We're going to have a baby.” 

Lillia had felt her world tilt on its axis, threatening to break apart. A surprise baby but not an unwelcome one; a shocking choice for its father but not a forced one. Her sister, her twin, older by two minutes and often wiser by parsecs, and now it was up to Lillia to be the strong one, the brave one, the smart one. 

“Fuck,” Lillia whispered, sinking slowly down the wall until her bottom thumped against the floor. All of their lives, it had been Lillia who led them into danger. Lillia was the wild one, the busy one, the one who didn't like being cuddled or stroked or kissed, who wanted to see and be and _do_. It was Lillia who caused their grandfather to shake his head and say to his second wife, Drea, 

“That girl'll be the death of me.” 

Dr. Karl Juznik was an eminent physician who had, enthusiastically, stepped in to raise the recently orphaned eleven year old twins when their parents were killed in a minor border skirmish between the New Republic and the leftover fringes of the old Empire. Karl never declared for a side and he never turned away a patient even as he sold secrets and toxins and stims and the occasional weapon to whichever side had the right amount of credits. He taught the girls to wield a blaster, to stitch a wound, to lie with straight faces and easy posture. Kittani took to the lab and to the lying with skill and grace; Lillia took to the blaster and to bolting whenever, and however, she could. He never let her get very far, usually just far enough to hang herself with her own foolishness and then he'd come and haul her back, back from the brink of whatever self-destruction she'd planned, Kittani calmly and patiently waiting at home with Drea. 

Sometimes, when she couldn't sleep, Lillia would remember him sliding his soft, gentle hand over her hair after one of her daring escapes and shaking his head. “Too much of me in you,” he'd mutter in his rough, gruff voice and then he’d take her home. 

The day he hadn't come to fetch her had been the day she'd enlisted with the Resistance. 

The day she'd taken Kittani with her. 

She was up and running before the memory could fully form. 

OoO 

“Is she resting?” 

Rey nodded, tipping her head over onto Luke's shoulder as Leia paced back and forth in front of them, her hands clasped behind her back, her teeth worrying her lower lip. It was in these moments, as her uncle rubbed her shoulder lightly with his mechanical hand and her mother didn't even need to stop to glare at them both, that Rey thought wistfully of all of the things she'd lost by being separated from them for so long. In the back of her mind, she felt the thread connecting her to her brother tremble with empathy. “The medical droid says it’s natural for her to be tired in these early days.” 

Leia winced and Rey sighed. It was Luke who said, gently, “Leia,” and, again, more forcefully, “Leia!” until the leader of armies seemed to shrink, stopping in the middle of the floor, the lines in her face deepening, her hands out and open. 

“I don't…I don't know what to do.” Her brown eyes, only a few shades lighter than her son's and with no hint of the green of her daughter's, darted from Rey to Luke and back again. “He's not...he's killed...there isn't...” Her breath hitched and her eyes filled and her voice was very, very tiny when she whispered again, “I don't know what to do.” 

“I think that will have to be up to Kittani.” 

What Luke didn't say but what Rey knew Leia was thinking was: _But can she be trusted?_

OoO 

Kittani did not sleep. She could have, would have, if the thoughts chasing themselves around in her head had been quiet, peaceful ones; her body was weary, aching slightly as it attempted to adapt to the changes happening, to the tiny person nestled snug inside of her, and she knew if only he were here her mind would quiet and there would be no worry, no fear, no pain. 

She tried, finally, to reach out to him, projecting as he’d told her she did, as she’d done so often before they’d sent her to Starkiller that Leia had rooted her out, found her out and sat her down and asked her why the kriff she wasn’t trained. Kittani had been stymied and shocked. The Jedi were just superstitious nonsense and ancient hoodoo, Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader myths and legends and the General hadn’t laughed when she’d said, “I think I have a use for you.” 

_Did you know it would happen? Did you mean it to happen?_

_Did you love me, really, even a little?_

The silence stretched, thick and hot and oppressive, and Kittani curled even further in on herself, lost and lonely and afraid. 

OoO 

“What the fuck, Benny?” 

The Emperor of the Known Galaxy winced and scrubbed a hand through his overlong curling dark hair. He looked older, his wide, expressive mouth pinched, his elbows propped on his knees, the already pale cast to his skin nearly grey and Rey would have had more sympathy if she wasn’t so kriffing _angry_ with him. 

“I trusted you!” She railed, pacing much as their mother had done earlier in the day, her slender frame fairly vibrating with tension and disgust and Ben (Kylo, dammit, his fucking name was _Kylo_ ) leaned back against the seat in the common area in the _Falcon_ , his eyes drifting shut as he nodded along with her rapid fire movements and delivery. He wondered, idly, if she knew she was using the Force and sparking like an angry comet. “You asked me to help you, asked me to forgive you, and I did! I forgave you for the Academy, I forgave you for wiping my memory, I forgave you for abandoning me on that shithole of a planet, I forgave you for letting our family think I was dead, I forgave you for doing what you thought what was right and then straying from the path, I forgave you for what you did to our …” 

He grunted a little, reached out, and made a small gesture with his long, elegant, pale fingers, freezing her in place. “ _Stop talking_.” 

She glared at him, hot and bright and fierce, her wide, expressive mouth so like his own peeled back from her teeth in a grimace as she fought his hold, and gods, look at her, his sister, his equal, his tooka, brave and mean and incandescent in her Light. “Rey. I need you to trust me for a little longer.” He kept asking so much from the women in his life, bend and bend and bend and not break, never break, strong and true, and he thought if he couldn't have this, couldn't have his connection to his family here in the quiet place between dreams, if Rey abandoned him, he would be lost. Lost to the Dark, to the endless, depthless well of his many, many failures and failings and faults. 

He watched, proud and awed and gods he was so fucking _tired_ as Rey burst out of the Force hold, shredding it like flimsiplast, and threw herself at him bodily, arms and legs flailing and he raised his hands to ward off the blow only to find his arms full of slender, agile, frustrated Jedi. 

“I will find you and I will kill you.” She threatened him even as she clung tight, like when she was small and he was the center of her universe before they sent him away, and he thought of the baby, his baby, the new hope, growing inside of Kittani where he couldn't reach either of them, and he dropped his forehead to the girl's thin, bird-like shoulder and fought not to weep. 

“Ben,” Rey whispered, turning to rub her cheek against his. “She saw a scan of the baby today.” She felt her brother's big, powerful body shudder against hers, felt his breath sputter and gasp, and she stroked his hair as he'd done for her so many moons ago, so many moons when a little girl couldn't sleep and a half-grown boy who lived with nightmares tried to save them both. Now they were a half-grown woman and a battered man and she rocked him and murmured against his temple as he fought not to cry, not to feel, not to let Ben Solo overwhelm Kylo Ren, the tears scalding and bitter on his lips, rain on a barren desert. “She misses you so much.” 

What she didn't say, and what he didn't, couldn't, wouldn't confess, was that he missed her, too. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _No, she was most certainly not his consort, his concubine, or his prize: she was his _General._ And she’d _earned_ the kriffing title, unlike some family-name if illegitimate ginger who’d had the terribly bad luck to get captured by the Resistance, captured by a woman Phasma had trusted, by a woman Hux had cared for._
> 
> _Fucking Kittani._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentine's Day. Let's hope Cupid brought my muse back for a bit.

Eirian Phasma had been standing at attention for four galactic standard hours, seventeen galactic standard minutes, and twenty-seven galactic standard seconds. Her feet fucking hurt, her back fucking hurt, and if one more ambassadorial asshole made another poetic comment about how she and the Emperor were like the moon and the endless vastness of space or some other bullshit line, she was going to pull the vibro-baton from her back and whack them upside their fool head with it. 

Yes, she was wearing her not-quite-regulation ‘trooper armor, shiny and silver with its foolish and fanciful scarlet half-cape and full-face helmet. 

Yes, the Emperor was wearing long, flowing black robes edged in silver piping with a matching, newly designed mask shaped a bit like a bird of prey, a slightly more grandiose but no less severe costume than he’d worn as the Master of the Knights of Ren. 

No, their costumes did not make them perfect or glorious or any other insulting and obsequious adjective the diplomatic toadies could dream up in their attempts to ingratiate themselves. That they were convinced that flowery platitudes and empty promises could sway the fearsome, blank visage of the new Emperor was laughable at best, pathetic at worst. 

No, she was most certainly not his consort, his concubine, or his prize: she was his _General._ And she’d _earned_ the kriffing title, unlike some family-name if illegitimate ginger who’d had the terribly bad luck to get captured by the Resistance, captured by a woman Phasma had trusted, by a woman Hux had cared for. 

Fucking Kittani. 

Slightly to her right and behind her, she heard a muffled cough and the rustle of fabric from the Emperor where he sat atop his grey basalt throne. She was glad her helmet hid her expression, a curled lip and a wrinkled nose, as the Mirialan ambassador bowed first to the Emperor and then to her, his pond-scum-green face with its dark brown tribal tattoos and shocking purple eyes remaining placid as the Emperor’s voice, flattened by the vocoder in his mask, thanked him for his visit. Clearly dismissed, the man turned to go. 

At least he hadn’t tried to manipulate the Emperor who was many things, except, perhaps, a fool. 

Unless you had pretty blue eyes and a sweet smile and… 

She might have growled, just a little. 

Another rustle, another cough, this one slightly louder. “General.” 

“Your Excellency?” she answered immediately, still watching the door as it closed, half of her mind calculating the probability of an attack, the other half still labeling Kittani a seditious bitch. 

The ‘troopers around the throne stepped back, likely at a signal from the Emperor as he rose from his throne, tall and imposing, the thud thud thud of his military-style boots as he came down the two steps echoing to the high, shadowed ceiling. He paused with the hem of his robes brushing her legs, his black gloved hand appearing in her line of sight as he bent slightly at the waist and crooked his finger under her chin. 

She’d forgotten, inconveniently, that the Emperor could read minds. _Fuck me. No, wait, no, Maker be damned, I’m an idiot._

“General,” he said again, his head tilting slightly to the side as he studied her. If she hadn’t known better, Phasma would have thought there was amusement coloring his deep, sonorous, modulated voice. As it was, filling her head with static, colorful Huttese and battle formations and what she’d eaten for breakfast, she immediately took a knee, her head bowed, fist over her heart, and hoped he was feeling benevolent. He seemed to be for the hand that had slid back to his side when she knelt made a come-hither motion, his glove creaking. “Walk with me.” He didn’t wait for her, turning elegantly on his heel and stalking around the back of his throne, deeper into the fortress that had been Darth Vader’s at the height of the Empire. 

Phasma rose at the same time he waved away the guards. “I think I’ll be safe enough,” he said to their shuffling feet and confused head turns and, not one to countermand a direct order, she just nodded and added stiffly, 

“Dismissed.” 

Then she rose and marched after the quickly disappearing figure, their steps eventually falling into a tandem rhythm as doors opened before them and then closed behind them without ever being touched. It was another unnerving reminder that he was more than just the power of the mantle he had assumed. 

Bast Castle, because that’s what it really was, weathered black stone and defensible by being built into the face of a cliff accessible only from the north, a sheer drop into the turbulent lava sea to the west and a rushing, dangerous lava river to the south, decorated appropriately in the austere style of the former Empire and the new First Order, was an acceptable place for the Emperor to receive dignitaries. She’d wondered, however, when he’d steered the Finalizer to the remote planet, if it was an appropriate place from which to run the myriad planets and systems who owed allegiance and fealty to the First Order. She had not questioned his judgment, however, even though they’d now spent over a galactic standard month sitting on their collective asses while rumors of the Resistance continued to grow. 

“And while the Knights of Ren run unchecked through the galaxy, making me look like an idiot who has no control over his minions,” he added as the door to his private quarters swished open. They both froze at the threshold, his mask tipped enquiringly up toward hers as she stared down at him, incredulous and frustrated. 

“You cannot just dig about in someone’s thoughts that way,” she reprimanded him severely and was startled by his laugh as he released his mask with a hiss and dropped it carelessly onto a table. It was bitter-edged and husky but it was a laugh, the first she’d heard from him in years. It was humanizing, as was the way he ran his hands through his hair, disordering the shoulder-length black waves even more before turning his long, pale, narrow face toward her. He wasn’t an ugly man but there was something ungainly about his big nose and sharp chin, something vulnerable about his wide, full mouth and long, long lashes; she wasn’t sure she could see the appeal. His grin spread, a flash of teeth, and she cursed, reaching up to release her own helmet and tucking it under her arm. 

“I remember why Hux thought you were insufferable,” she said irritably. “Always knowing what everyone is thinking.” 

“Yeah,” he agreed equitably with a shrug of one of his shoulders. “But his head was too boring to eavesdrop on for long.” 

“Until Kittani,” she said tartly, pointedly, and braced for the imminent explosion. Instead of rage, however, Kylo only produced another of those strange sounds of amusement and lifted brows. 

“I didn’t need to read his mind to know he was lusting after her.” A shadow flitted across his face, here and gone, and then he rocked Phasma’s world out from under her. “That was the plan all along.” 

OoO 

Kylo wasn’t sure what he’d expected from normally calm, unruffled Phasma but it certainly wasn’t for her to gawp at him like a landed sea animal, her mouth opening and closing until she finally managed a weak, “Come again?” 

“You knew, or suspected, she had help. Now you know who it was.” He made a sweeping, grandiose gesture toward himself. He was careful not to poke around in her head, too invested in the outcome of all his plotting and planning to let her opinion, positive or negative, affect him now. 

Too invested in what he needed her to do. 

“But...why? What possible reason could you have for…” She trailed away, cleared her throat. “You used her to clear the board of Hux.” She hesitated and then straightened, tall and handsome and wary. “How long, Kylo, had you been planning a coup?” 

Rather than answer, hedging his bets as his father had never taught him to do, Kylo stalked over to one of the myriad cabinets built into the wall. Unlocking it with a wave of his hand, he removed the contents. They were insubstantial, nearly weightless, just a credit chip and a passkey, but they represented both a promise kept and a new one he wanted, hoped, he could make. He offered the two small pieces of plasticene to Phasma without comment. He gave her credit for loyalty as she didn’t hesitate to take them. She did, however, begin to turn them over and over in her hand, her brow creasing. 

Aware that maintaining a neutral expression would be beyond him, Kylo turned away once more to stare out the window at the boiling red magma far below. It churned and frothed, as mad and wild as the persona he had cultivated since his teens, fearsome and ferocious and without mercy, Kylo Ren, the Master of the Knights of Ren, destroyer of worlds, reaper of souls, heir to a twice-damned prophecy of balance in the Force. 

_Did you love me, even a little?_

His hands fisted on the window ledge. “They say I killed my own father.” 

“Yes.” A beat. Neutrally, “Did you?” 

_“Will you help me?”_

_“Yes. Anything.”_

Death, but the Force. 

Kylo cleared his throat. He could hear the thickness still when he finally spoke, see the frowning countenance that stared back at him from the transparisteel, guilt and grief in the downward curve of his mouth. He closed his eyes. “You ever been to Nar Shaddaa, Phasma?” 

“The smuggler’s moon? No.” 

_Your mom’s the princess, kid. I’m just a smuggler with delusions of grandeur._

“There is a ship being readied for you as we speak. Go to the Slippery Slope cantina. Ask for Bek. Show him the passkey. He should take you to a vault in the city center.” 

“And when I find whatever it is? What shall I do with it?” 

“I need you to take it to General Leia Organa of the Resistance.” Kylo did not open his eyes but he did let himself sigh as he felt Phasma’s surprise, her disgust, her unease as a smear of slick, oily residue in the Force. 

_You don’t mean just me._

“I need you to take it to my mother.” 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Everything about him went still, still and watchful, and Lillia felt the danger as a visceral thrill up her spine as the General of the First Order blinked across the table at her out of pansy blue eyes and coiled like a snake, ready to strike._
> 
>  
> 
> Major Lillia and General Hux have a meeting of the...minds. And Poe gets laid. (NSFW but super short. For now.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not dead I'm just so busy with actual work that writing has fallen behind. It's no excuse but there it is. This story, as you can probably guess, is not The Last Jedi compliant for the most part. We'll see some of it but...not a lot. If there be spoilers, I'll let you know.

Lillia couldn't run from herself for long. Being an officer meant discipline, duties that couldn't be forsaken or shifted, a meeting with the General sometime later in the day, and so she spent only an hour with the trees and the grass and the warm, dry air. It was the petite, smirking, dark-haired woman with the uptilted eyes leaning negligently on the wall near the identity scan for the cell block who noted the grass stains, her pat on Lillia’s ass both familiar and amused. 

“Major, you been fuckin’ in the grass again?” the woman teased, her laughter husky as she danced nimbly away from Lillia’s half-hearted return swipe. 

“Shut it, Pava.” She was shaking her head and smiling when she said it, glad it was the smart-mouthed, scrappy fighter pilot on duty rather than one of the less friendly of the strange rotation they’d cobbled together out of the personnel not off shooting up First Order facilities or running reconnaissance missions. Jessika Pava had been one of the first to volunteer, her interest in taking down the First Order personal but not blind : she’d even given their guest a nickname. 

"Maybe you should clean up before you visit the ginger gesticulator.” It was a play on the holo they’d all seen of General Hux extolling the virtues of his genocidal weapon and if the whole Starkiller debacle hadn’t ended up with her sister pregnant with some whackjob Emperor’s baby, no offense meant to General Organa or Master Luke or Jedi Rey, Lillia might have found it more amusing than she did. 

“He shouldn’t be looking at my ass,” she said mildly as the door schnicked open. Expecting a quick retort from Pava’s always sassy mouth, she instead got a long, long silence. “What?” she asked finally as she stepped through the door, turning back to surprise a strange look of embarrassment and pity on the pilot’s little-girl cute face. 

“He’s always looking at you, Major.” 

The words prickled under already sensitive skin, digging and digging the closer Lillia drew to the door of the interrogation room, scraping and scraping as she sank into the hard chair where she would sit for the next hour or two, and finally, finally they drew blood as Reyes led the prisoner into the room, secured him to the table, and left them alone. The former General’s sharp, handsome face and bright blue eyes belied the rigid set of his pretty mouth as he took the seat across from her, prim and proper, and said in his cultured, accented, censorious voice, “Major, there is dirt under your fingernails.” 

“Fuck you,” she said, fast and hot, and watched one of his bright red, aristocratic eyebrows arch toward his hairline, an expression of disdain and inquiry she particularly hated because it was one she couldn’t do, and she had reached across the table to slap her hands over his bound ones before she could check the impulse. Everything about him went still, still and watchful, and Lillia felt the danger as a visceral thrill up her spine as the General of the First Order blinked across the table at her out of pansy blue eyes and coiled like a snake, ready to strike. 

He’d hidden this from her, hidden his power and his precision and his predatory nature under the calm, careful, civilized veneer he cultivated and she was suddenly, viciously furious with him. Furious with him in a way she couldn’t be furious with her sister. “Why, you’re no better than the Emperor,” she purred as her fingers tightened over his. 

He hesitated, confusion a quick crinkle of his arched brow that smoothed out as he flexed his long, slender hands in hers, a warning and a promise. “I have no idea of whom you speak,” he said finally and Lillia let herself smile, a smile that did not, she knew, reach her eyes. 

“Oh, have you not been told?” she teased, almost flirtatiously, and her smile grew as Hux let himself frown, the expression moving slowly across his pale face as she leaned close, closer, closest across the table, until they were nearly nose to nose, until she could count each freckle that painted the porcelain perfection of his skin under the thin scattering of red-gold facial hair they didn’t let him shave. Until she could whisper against his cheekbone, “Kylo Ren is the Emperor of the New Galactic Empire.” 

She was not prepared for Hux’s hands, more callused and hard than the life of a pampered poncey First Order elite suggested, to flip beneath hers so they were palm to palm, skin to skin, for him to use a twist of his shoulders and a yank to flatten her against his chest, his breath hissed in her ear, “You _lie_.” 

“I do not,” she returned promptly though her heart had turned into a wild bird, desperately beating its wings to be free of the cage of her ribs. “And I’m insulted you would doubt my integrity after all of our little chats.” 

Hux heard his own breathing, harsh and loud, felt the fine tremor in her hands, and watched her pupils expand and contract at his nearness, trying to get enough light as his taller form blocked most of it out where they were pressed together. _No, no, no, not true, it can’t be true, I should be Emperor, would be Emperor, I have sacrificed and given and bled and I would die for the Order._ “The Supreme Leader would not allow that volatile imbecile to take the throne.” The words were less steady than he would have liked, a plea he refused to acknowledge. _Mine, mine, mine, it was meant to be mine!_

Those damnable not-quite-familiar swirling ocean eyes sparkled and danced millimeters from his and for the first time, Hux understood that this woman _hated_ him. “Snoke is dead.” 

He had captured her lips in a brutal, painful kiss before the words had completely escaped her sensual, wicked, tempting mouth. It lasted less than breath, less than a heartbeat, but long enough for him to draw blood with the sharp edge of his canines. It bloomed, crimson and beautiful and delicious on her sweetly pink upper lip and he lapped it away with his tongue, tasting copper and salt, in the seconds before she used what must have been her considerable training in hand-to-hand to punch him. 

His eye felt as if it had exploded out of the socket long after his cell door hissed shut behind him. 

OoO 

Poe Dameron was fast. He liked fast flying and fast women and fast talking. He especially liked fast women who liked fast men who liked to share because there was something delicious and decadent about kissing the mouth of a man who’d just had his tongue buried in the cunt of a beautiful woman. Or, he thought as he watched Rey’s wide, wide mouth swallowing the length of his cock, being kissed by beautiful _Finn_ while _Rey’s_ avid hazel eyes flicked back and forth between them, pupils blown wide by lust. 

“Are you guys...hngh.” Whatever he’d been meaning to say, and he thought he should say it, was lost as Rey did something particularly agile with her tongue and Finn’s big, gentle fingers curled around the base of his cock, squeezing. 

“Yeah, Dameron,” Finn whispered, proving his ability to read expressions and need and affection was as wonderful as ever as he nipped and nibbled and kissed his way across Poe’s chest, “We’re sure.” 

Rey hummed her agreement around the tip of Poe’s tight, leaking cock, and so fast, hot, lovelorn Poe Dameron did what he’d wanted to do since Finn and Rey had taken his hands and tugged him into his room: he dropped his head to Finn’s shoulder, petted Rey’s hair, and panted, “You’re both the _best_.” 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"It was all the encouragement, all the permission, he could have wanted, she was everything he’d ever wanted, and he scooped her up into his arms, one under her knees, the other supporting her shoulders, and carried her into the bedroom, to the bed that until now had held only him."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So four or five chapters of this have been mouldering on my thumb drive through inattention, overwork, and general laziness. Here's some lovin' from me to you.

Kittani and her Emperor dreamed of her first, precious surrender. 

He’d owned the high-rise, luxury apartment on Nar Shadaa since he was twenty, the newly minted Master of the Knights of the Ren, and he’d furnished it as Ben Solo, the shy, awkward son of a smooth Corellian smuggler and the Princess of Alderaan: real cut crystal glasses for the fully stocked bar of spirits, sprawling, comfortable sofas in muted shades of browns and golds, a ‘fresher built more for hedonism than for cleansing, a real running-water tub large enough for four but able to comfortably fit his long, muscled body, a bed the size of a Nabooian lake with the softest, silkiest sheets, and a spectacular view into the lower levels of the city. 

When the door dinged, heralding her arrival, Ben paused in the entryway and glanced down at the table there, the table formed of wood and graced with a tall vase of long-stemmed flowers, and felt desire coil hot and heavy in his gut. He’d dreamed of taking her here, in this apartment, long before he’d seen her face, and as the door whisked open with a lazy wave of his fingers, he found himself confronted with the object of his obsession. 

She’d left her hair down and flowing over her shoulders, sunlight bright even in the dull illumination of the hallway, and greedy Kylo wanted to reach out and jerk her into the room, into him, wanted to take and bite and lick and break while enraptured Ben wanted to woo and cherish and tend. Something of his struggle must have communicated to Kittani for she stepped over the threshold and into him, his beautiful girl of durasteel and plastiscene, and wrapped her arms tight around his waist, her hands splayed over the broad, endless planes of his back. “Stop thinking,” she whispered, a gentle reproof, and he actually growled, low and feral in his throat, as he boosted her up onto the table and covered her mouth with his. 

She purred into the kiss, parted her lips for the bold sweep of his tongue and her legs so he could press between them even as she burrowed her small hands under his loose tunic, dancing them up his spine. He fumbled between them to strip her out of the pants she’d obviously borrowed from his sister, too tight in the hips, too long in the leg, groaning in appreciation when he found her naked beneath them. “I want…I want to go slow,” he panted into her hair, peppering kisses over her cheeks and her lips and her neck, tender little kisses even as he slid a finger less than carefully inside her warmth. He nearly came apart when he found her damp. “Kitten, make me…I need you to…different, want it to be different…” He groaned against the slope of her breast as she rippled around his invasion, her hips lifting into his touch as she made a little mewling sound of pleasure and raked her nails down his back. 

“It will be different.” He leaned back, leaned back so she could see his face, long and pale, the freckles and the beauty mark near his lush mouth, his burning, burning dark eyes caught between incredulity and lust, the sharp nose that nudged her cheekbone before retreating again, and she buried her fingers in the thick waves of his hair and said, “This time, you’re giving me a choice.” She pressed a butterfly kiss to the corner of his lips, breathing her words into his skin, her acceptance and her need and all the feelings she’d bottled up when it had been the spying and the work and the duty. “Ben.” She kissed the opposite corner of his mouth, lingered as he slid another finger inside of her, gentler now, deeper. “Kylo.” Another, longer kiss, her tongue sweeping in to tangle with his as his long, dexterous fingers crooked toward her belly, his thumb brushing over her clit. Her voice was husky and sure when she murmured, “Yes. Everything you have to give and more.” She framed his face, his vulnerable, somehow boyish and predatory face in her hands and clenched down tight on his invasion. She willed him to believe. “I’m yours.” 

It was all the encouragement, all the permission, he could have wanted, she was everything he’d ever wanted, and he scooped her up into his arms, one under her knees, the other supporting her shoulders, and carried her into the bedroom, to the bed that until now had held only him. He stripped her out of her borrowed tunic, stripped off his own clothes, and when he slid inside of her, the tightly furled tips of her breasts brushing his chest, her arms and legs wound around him, holding him close, as she arched and shivered and finally, finally came apart underneath him, Ben emptied into her and knew he’d come home. 

OoO __

Decades and lightyears before the battles between the Empire and the Rebellion, before Luke and Leia and Han were heroes and Darth Vader was a terrifying legend, there was a secret Jedi order, the Sixth Line. They were Jedi warriors of the finest caliber, built to withstand the onslaught, to bear the burden, to lead the charge. Their name was a reference to the five accepted lines of the Jedi Code; for them, there was a sixth. 

The Emperor had carved three words into the otherwise unadorned, square obsidian headpiece of the chair in his meditation chamber: _Contemplation, but duty._

Sitting on it now, attempting something between sleep and meditation and failing utterly as desire and pain and love stormed through him, Ben dropped his head back and screamed. 

Kittani woke as the echo of her lover's grief and rage shattered the glass of water her sister had left sitting on her bedside table, her hand outstretched, reaching for someone who wasn't there. 

**Author's Note:**

> So, hi. Yes, you, who stuck with me through the first one that turned into a helluva ride. This one probably will, too, since, you know, the characters seem to _get away from me_. *shakes fist at Kylo* I wanted more Poe because, yum, and so since I didn't want to make more Mary Sues (geez, I already made two!), I thought I'd see how I do with polyamorous Finn/Rey/Poe. Also, Luke and Leia aren't sure they signed up for this shit. Let me know what you think.  <3


End file.
